


could be dangerous

by insistentbass



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-28
Updated: 2012-08-28
Packaged: 2017-11-20 13:35:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/585928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insistentbass/pseuds/insistentbass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>- because Sherlock has left him with nothing but himself, and that’s just not good enough, anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	could be dangerous

Could be dangerous, he says, and dangerous it is -

At first, primarily, _fundamentally_ , there is nothing at all; long nights and longer strides of leg, weaving and running and dodging the swing of a fist or the path of a bullet, surviving and thriving within the ebb of adrenaline and the shadows of Sherlock’s coat tails.

Nothing at all, just work, just therapy.

But nothing breeds more, grows into everything - and three nights after Baskerville, John finds himself craving thrill and instability, and being simultaneously afraid of it. Because he knows what comes next, who comes next, the how and _why_ he feels so vulnerable, (on edge every time Sherlock’s phone vibrates, tense every time Lestrade calls round) - scared, really.

John knows what’s about to happen before Sherlock does. Had _known_ ; walking away from a crime scene with gun residue hiding under his nails, with siren lights in his eyes and Sherlock’s wide smile ringing in his ears - Moriarty, four syllables, _danger_.

The evening before the court case is pure hell, suffocating, and John wants nothing more than to bundle Sherlock into his room and lock the door; keep him there, safe, just the two of them and no psychopath, no death. John realises this as he stirs a pan of tomato soup, hoping the smell alone will lure Sherlock from his sprawled out trance on the sofa and close enough so he can grab him and put his plan into action.

Instead, he dishes up and sprinkles a few extra croutons on Sherlock’s bowl in some attempt to fill the man’s stomach. He eats in silence at the table and eventually Sherlock joins him, sweeps into the chair opposite and says nothing. Sherlock scoops the soup up slowly, avoiding the tactically placed croutons altogether. John watches him until their eyes lock and doesn’t like what he finds; the empty space in the whites of Sherlock’s unsteady gaze, the calculations and theories and plans and _secrets_ screaming in his pupils, that John cannot understand.

The spoon clatters as John pushes his bowl forwards, leans back in his chair and wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. He’s angry, suddenly, wants answers and explanations, anything other than _this_ \- a constant feeling of abandonment; because Sherlock has left him with nothing but _himself_ , and that’s just not good enough, anymore.

“Let’s just leave” John breaks the silence, presses two fingers to his own lips, silencing something already spoken, and shifts, restless.

Sherlock places his spoon down quietly, swallows air, and John watches the oxygen work its way down a taught throat, slow and uncomfortable.

“I mean, why can’t we, Sherlock - forget this”

It’s not a question though, because John isn’t stupid; there are things John wants and things Sherlock needs, the drive for completion separates them, the will to solve a puzzle that could lead to death, or worse. Sherlock cannot live without ending Moriarty, without the final problem, and John - completely, wholly - cannot live without Sherlock.

“We can leave, together, _right_ now -“

“John,“ Sherlock starts, brow furrowing, eyes hard against John’s own. There’s electric between them, across the table, skimming the soup; but it’s new and _more_ than dangerous, cataclysmic, and John can’t stand it.

“ _Goddammit_ , Sherlock!” His fist hits the table before he realises, and John shakes his head, attempts to reign himself in before it becomes impossible to do so. Sherlock doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move at all but to raise his chin a little, brace himself with thinned lips and dark eyes.

“Please, can we.” John exhales, scrubs his face with both hands until spiders dance in his vision and pulls himself up; out of the chair, leans his weight on the back of it with two shaking arms, his head dropped to the silence, on the edge of saying all the things he should not.

He doesn’t hear the scrape of the other chair, the click of Sherlock’s spine as he rises and moves, until a hand is on bicep, until fingers burn through the thin of his cotton shirt. John sighs and thinks - _you’re leaving me_ \- it’s written in the stamp of Sherlock’s fingerprints on his arm, the thrum of his pulse loud in John’s ears, in the way he speaks but says nothing.

With another shake of his head - _denial_ \- John looks up, flats his tongue against his bottom lip and turns to face him. There are lies and truths swimming in Sherlock’s unfocused eyes and John isn’t sure which one surfaces, which is concocted in the man’s mouth -

“It will be over soon, John”

Except that sounds like _everything will be over_ , sounds like a promise that Sherlock isn’t sharing and that John very much does not want to hear. He feels it breathed against the skin of his cheeks, the bridge of his nose, the peak of his chin. It’s not good, at all, and he wonders if maybe Sherlock is keeping things hidden to prepare him, to douse the eventuality - which explains, really, why John has felt alone for weeks, desolate, running blind.

“Don’t,” He inhales, lets his eyelids fall briefly closed. “I know what that means, so don’t. Spare me that, at least.”

But Sherlock never spares him anything, not this and not the flickering wave of pure _losing_ , as he parts his mouth to speak and promptly shuts it again. There’s still a grip on John’s arm and it tightens slightly, mirrors the agitation as Sherlock tries to be coherent, find words that won’t give him away. None exist, though, only secrets and lies remain, and Sherlock keeps those to himself.

John finds himself gravitating, tensing his muscle under Sherlock’s strong fingers and trying to physically make himself taller. _I can take it_ , he thinks, and if John were not so proud a man he would ask - no, _beg_ \- Sherlock to let him in, to take him along.

But John _is_ a proud man, is strong and defiant, and those are the only things he has left. So instead, he grazes his thumb along Sherlock’s shirt collar, feels the heat of Sherlock’s breath as he swallows again. John doesn’t know what else to do, doesn’t really think at all, as he works open Sherlock’s top button, lets his palms glide against expensive weave as he moves down, slow and steady.

Sherlock says nothing but John can feel him, watching his hands work as they slip buttons through holes, the eyes on his own downcast ones - then, John feels a hand leave his bicep and fingers push passed his own; Sherlock flicks open the last two buttons and lays himself bare, lets his shirt pool on the floor and John, _Christ_ , he can’t stop the shiver roll through him.

This is No Man’s Land; a stretch of landscape not so much unoccupied, but _avoided_. John certainly treads there, dips his toes each time Sherlock lights up after solving a case, each time he laughs, every time they share a silent breakfast. This limbo place is littered with things that John understands but that Sherlock probably doesn’t, which makes it all the more dangerous, and all the more appealing.

“This is it” Sherlock speaks, vibrates across the baby hairs on John’s forehead.

But that could mean so many things and John doesn’t know where to even begin. Sherlock’s voice pushes through him like the breaking of a storm, the swell of rain before the downpour, and he lets it; welcomes the heady electricity, the static, takes it all in with the eggshell plane of Sherlock’s chest.

Yes, the man is certainly something, and even though John does physically want him - quite obviously so - the blood seething through his veins isn’t laced purely with pent up lust. It’s longing; the desire to finally weave himself under Sherlock’s skin, to unravel him and lay him out so that John can count every flaw and perfection, catalogue and deduce each pore. No one _knows_ Sherlock Holmes, but John thinks he might be very close to it, teetering on the edge, about to swim out into the sea.

“I trust you”

John says, whispers, translates with the steady set of his eyes, though his muscles tremble. Watches with his lips tight as Sherlock absorbs, filters through the sentiment and gets to the very head of it, the mind; because trust and feeling and emotion, they’re all just particles, pieces of the equation. John provides the elements and Sherlock does the rest - spontaneous combustion.

“Then show me” Sherlock answers, upturns his palms by his sides, a gesture of surrender or a challenge, John will take either.

Takes his wrists, too; circles them with his own firm fingers, presses Sherlock against the nearest surface - sink - until John feels the jolt of the man’s hips against hard edge, something steady and solid, but not at all grounding.

Sherlock huffs out a breath and his eyes burn; John sees volcanic doubt and curiosity struggle in his unwavering gaze, a smouldering cloud of foreign ground that they’re so close to treading. It takes a lot, _more_ than a lot, not to part Sherlock’s mouth with his own tongue, take his words and his doubt and eat them, swallow them whole. And it’s not like John even needs permission - Sherlock has the upper hand mentally but hell, John’s _always_ had it physically - no, he simply wants to hear it, wants to believe it; stark and true and like dirt from Sherlock’s lips.

John releases his wrists, drags his thumbs along the ley line veins in Sherlock’s arms and feels the soft brush of shivering hairs against the pads of his fingers.

“And what, Sherlock,”

A stuttering breath because he needs it right now, a blink or three, to bring himself back from a sudden vision of a sweat glazed back, arching to his touch, trembling muscles. John wants, craves, an instantaneous desire to taste every corner of Sherlock, all the mess and filth that comes with him -

“What could I possibly show you, a man who sees everything?”

John’s touch drifts to Sherlock’s collarbone, and the man gasps, a little, intakes air and doesn’t let it back out again.

“How to be _blind_ ”

So John takes his sight, literally; smoothes the curves of his thumbs over Sherlock’s eyelids and drags them over the mountains of his cheeks.  John dips his head forwards and marries his lips to the man’s chin, mouths the line from jaw to neck and breathes deep in Sherlock’s ear, breathes _into_ him and around him so it’s all he can hear, steals another sense.

Sherlock isn’t going to share with him, won’t give John an inch of space, won’t let him in at all - will leave John with only the gift of hindsight when it’s all done, and he knows it; can taste it in the pores of Sherlock’s flushing skin, the straining tendons in his neck. All John can do is take what Sherlock is willing to give, and right now that’s flesh, sweat, these sweet small moments of time that will, ultimately, amount to nothing.

With that thought clear in his head, John transcends; grazes late night stubble against Sherlock’s soft cheek, presses their mouths together briefly, pulls back before Sherlock has a chance to part his lips. John thinks, then, how young Sherlock actually looks, with his eyes closed and his breaths coming short, exposed and vulnerable and not the man who pokes at dead bodies in the morgue. It startles him for a moment, a sudden grip of sadness that turns his stomach, turns his heart.

But then Sherlock braves forward, sweeps his tongue across John’s bottom lip and he’s cut up for a moment, caught in the wet of Sherlock’s mouth, the sharps of his teeth. John’s hands fall to slim hips, pull tight so their bodies meet and he is so easily getting lost again, so naively drifting into the lines of Sherlock’s body and the pure tug of heat radiating from his bare chest. From hips, John moves to the front of the man’s trousers, hastily and messily reaches between them to undo a button, a zip.

Maybe it’s too real, now, too far gone, but they live for this, don’t they? Adrenaline and thrill and the solving of a case - and _this_ is the most important puzzle of all; the problem that outweighs the Finale, _above_ the fall. Time is short, and theirs is running out, coming to a sharp and poisonous crescendo.

 _So why not_ \- John thinks - _why the fuck not_.

Takes the palm of his hand and wraps it firm, sure, around Sherlock’s length, swallows the rough sound that echoes from his throat. With his mouth to Sherlock’s everything changes; there’s no Moriarty, no games, no chance that Sherlock will leave or be taken, and John is _living_ again, growing and grinning in the back of a cab with Sherlock’s knees brushing his own.

For a few moments, Sherlock does nothing but guide himself into John’s hand, calm and controlled despite being neither. Then John tightens his grip, shifts a little so his hips and hardness align with the man’s own, and Sherlock gives; snakes a hand around and flats a palm against the small of his back, angles their mouths and sucks at John’s tongue, hard and silky and enough to hurt.

There are spots in front of John’s eyes, tiny sparks of lightning flitting across his vision and he _aches_ , burns for it, his body screaming white hot - but John doesn’t reach into his own trousers, does nothing but press into Sherlock and work his hand faster around him, slick with sweat from the creases of his palms and faster, truer.

“Look at me, Sherlock”

And when Sherlock lifts his eyes John sees the sun; he sees a blinding light that’s swallowing them both whole, absorbing them into molten heat. John meets their foreheads together, moulds his face against Sherlock’s until their eyelashes brush, until there’s nothing but blurry oceans and uniformly hitched breaths.

“John, _yes_ ”

A warning or an admission exhaled against his face - John has no time to tell before Sherlock comes over his hand, sharp and deliciously hot. But his fingers keep moving, slow, lush; wet as John commits it all to touch, imbeds it into the grooves of his skin, takes all he can get until Sherlock’s breath evens out and his cheeks feel slick from gathered sweat.

John lets go, rolls his forehead off Sherlock’s and draws back, the smallest of spaces between them. Silence, then, until Sherlock drags his nails along the curve of John’s cotton clad spine, across his shoulder and to frame the side of his face, dwarfs it. Sherlock closes the gap, fills the emptiness with a kiss to John’s chin, his upper lip, the bridge of his nose; chases his fingers to the waistband of John’s jeans and dips the tips inside, brushes the sparse hairs there - and John flinches.

“No, Sherlock,” He whispers, circles Sherlock’s searching digits with his own, spreads them against his stomach. “Please, don’t”

Narrowed eyes search his for an answer, an explanation, but Sherlock finds none. Instead, he asks,

“Why, _I want to -_ ”

And John swallows, fogs their vision together again, a hairs whisper between flushed flesh; mouths oxygen against Sherlock’s lips but nothing else - cannot touch, _will not_ , anymore.

“Because,”

John says, squeezes Sherlock’s hand once, twice; allows himself a last breath before he steps away, retreats, as he fades back from obscurity - is left with nothing but the cold of 221b and _himself_ (never enough).

“I won’t be able to _stop._ ”

  


  



End file.
